DESCRIPTION: Many children with sensorineural hearing impairment have sufficient residual hearing to use hearing aids and aural/oral language as their primary mode of communication. Yet the degree of success in understanding speech varies widely in these children, even in those with the same degree and configuration of hearing loss. This problem might be significantly reduced if we had a better understanding of the effects of childhood hearing impairment on speech perception. Thus the long term objective of our program of research is to understand how childhood hearing impairment affects the development of the processes and representations underlying accurate speech perception. The proposed research is a logical follow-up to our studies of Stroop (semantic) interference and extends these studies to address some phonological issues as well. The logic of the proposed studies is that important information about the mental representations and processes involved in speech perception may be revealed by studying the effects of semantically- or phonologically-related auditory probes on picture naming (picture word task). Pilot data suggest that children with hearing impairment show a different degree and time course of semantic and phonological processing interactions. We present a model of performance on our task and hypothesize about some possible modifications of the model that might account for results in the children with hearing impairment. To the extent that the pilot data are representative, results on the picture word test should yield important insights into whether the development of speech processing is delayed or qualitatively changed in the presence of childhood hearing impairment. Such data should provide information of clinical value in terms of understanding the nature of speech perception by hearing impaired children, thus helping us to develop better programs for promoting normal communication abilities. The data should provide information of theoretical value in terms of understanding the effects of differences in auditory experience on the development of speech processing.